I went into a nearby restaurant outside of Saratoga the other day, and I asked the owner, who was seating people, what he thought his future was.
“Well,” he said, “the restaurant as we knew it in March is dead. It’s not coming back, not in the old way.” But, he added, “I’m not glum about it. I need to be creative, and I need to get some help. We have to change. It’s already begun – takeout, architecture, seating, staff, safety.”
This, he said, has happened before. “I have to adapt and keep thinking.”
I hear those words again and again, from almost every thoughtful person I ask. Medicine is changing, shopping is changing, going to the movies is changing. Normal is gone, and not coming back. We are all asked to build new futures.
I can’t prove it, but I feel that we are moving to make our country kinder again, and less greedy and stressful. I think when all is said and done, we will have no choice.
We are a spoiled, even cosseted people; the country is still struggling with the idea that some medical or technological miracle will return us to normal. I’m beginning to understand that it is not going to happen.
But what is going to happen may not be all bad, or even bad at all. Lots of creative people are thinking about the future and how to make it better. I also sense this is great, even once in a lifetime chance to change for the better.
My governor, Andrew Cuomo, keeps saying that – we have a chance to make things better – and I am beginning to see what he means.
This is what I hear and read again and again.
We will all have to change our ideas about what is normal and create a new normal, new expectations. If I blow this chance, shame on me.
The Pandemic is not going to vanish soon, no matter what the government says. It will be years before a vaccine is developed, marketed, and available for billions of people.
It might take up to ten years, the doctors say.
I’m making a private study of the future, of what is normal now, and of what I can expect for Maria and me in the future.
Every day, I look for stories to read about the future now, and every day.
I ask every manager, doctor, business person, neighbor, postal clerk, and restaurant owner what kind of future do they think we will all have.
I read essays, articles, research studies, and opinion pieces. I find there is a hopeful, creative, and optimistic view of the future; the deep thinkers are more worried about climate change than the Pandemic.
And I stop and think and meditate on this for some time each day. I learned that if I am to have the life I want, I have to think about it, it won’t just jump into my arms.
I find little panic, little pessimism from the people I talk to, especially the farther I get from politics. It is the American way, at least in the country. Roll up your sleeves and get it done.
We will, they all say, figure the future out.
I understand that we humans are not good at imagining our future; it rarely turns out the way we think it will. It is like human beings to change, surprise, evolve. Only we can do that. And we will need to do it.
We alone have the gift of creativity and imagination; we have some say in what our futures will be like, unlike any other animal.
We have some choices, no one can make them for us.
I choose for my future to be better than in the past.
To be simpler, less expensive, slower, and more thoughtful than it was. I want to deepen my spiritual life, learn to be kinder, more patient, more open. I seek a life of love and meaning.
I have work to do; I want to do it.
We live in an increasingly expensive, stressful, hyper-active, and conflicted world. I feel there is more selfishness now than before, more greed and anger, and this reflects an aspiritual world obsessed with money and security.
I believe we are taught to fear the wrong things and need the wrong things; we are slaves to money and obligation and worry. It is challenging to be hopeful when so many people are hurting, but I also know that change is a great window that rarely opens as wide as it is now.
Change is not simply disruption; it is also an opportunity.
I think our angry and hurtful politics reflects us; it tells us what we are feeling and what we need to change. It mirrors our frantic and anxious lives and throws it back at us.
Why would it be different than we are? I believe we will start caring for the poor again and empathize. We are all learning what it is like to be needy.
Our politics shows us the work we have to do with ourselves and one another.
We have given too few people too much power and money; the corporate ethos has affected our work, our culture, our politics. I am excited by the idea of a simpler life, connecting more to nature and the natural world, learning how to be a friend and have a friend.
We have a chance to change that, it may never come again.
I want to share this experience on my blog, as I have shared my life here for the past 13 years. My writing leads me, shows me where I want to go. This is my journey, my record, my Bible.
I am drawn to the idea of a simpler life, Maria and I are already leading one. We drive less, go out to eat less, and buy fewer things. I bought a new car for less money than I thought I could get a new solar electric system that will save, not cost me money.
I have less and spend less.
It is harder to buy things, which is good because I am learning all the time that I need fewer things than I thought I would. What I do need, I often buy online, more and more; it is no longer available near me.
The online world will become more critical than ever, and for me, and my work with the Army Of Good, that is good news in a way.
Poor people, older people, refugees, will be as needy as before or more so as the economy takes its own time to recover. I have my chosen work to do, and the good people who support it are hanging in there with me.
My blog is the right thing for me to have now, the best way to do my work and communicate with people, the center of my creative life.
I seek to help the needy and the vulnerable, and they will need help for a long time, more than ever. I am working hard on planning for that.
Maria also has her connection to the wider world, she sells almost all of her art quickly, entirely online, and in her Etsy shop. We work hard, and live lives of meaning.
She has made some new friends since the Pandemic began – the need for friends deepens – and grown closer to some old ones.
We both are home more, reading more, talking more.
I have deepened some friendships as we all reach out to define and keep a sense of community. I need people more than I did, and so I seek people out, and they come looking for me.
I believe I am writing better than ever, typos and all.
I hear and read this story again and again. Great change is coming, and great opportunity. Alone among the animals of the world, we have choices to make about our lives.
I choose to build a better, kinder, and simpler life.
I track vaccine progress very closely, and most experts agree that one should be available for wide distrubution by mid 2021; if things go very well, possibly as early as Q1. Can you cite your source fot your estimate of ten years? Thanks!
Donald, doctors have been saying for months…Why don’t you Google it as I did, and do your own research…that the process of making a vaccine, marketing and getting it to everyone who needs it takes a long time..Billions of people will need a vaccine for it to be over, which is really just common sense..in the United States 340 million people will need a vaccine before a Pandemic can be pronounced officially over..do you really need someone else to tell you that? The vaccine itself will be available to people lucky enough to get it in 12 to 18 months..then the hard part comes, in the U.S. 28 per cent of Americans say they don’t believe in vaccines at all… if so, there are hundreds of health care professionals who will be happy to oblige and have been talking about it for months now..we can’t event test a fraction of the people who need it, why do you think a vaccine would be available to everyone in the world who needs one instantly? Like testing, the logistics of getting to everyone and making enough vaccines (some people can’t afford them or even know how to ask for them) will take years and years..but I’m not a good secretary, it’s easy enough to do your own research..
As I said, I track vaccine progress very closely, so you don’t need to snarkily tell me to “Google it.” You’re wrong in what you’re saying here–I could cite you dozens of articles from medical journals that are very confident that the vaccine will be available for wide distribution by mid-2021 (not 12-18 months), and if we’re reasonably lucky, by the first quarter of 2021. There are currently 107 vaccines in development, and several of them are already well into the third and final testing phase. Of those, at least two have very clever plans that will make production and distribution less of a challenge. Please don’t make unsubstantiated statements that will likely discourage people without foundation and refuse to provide your sources because you’re “not a good secretary.” That’s not being a responsible steward to your readers.
Please don’t lecture me on stewardship..if you don’t know it will be years before everyone who needs a vaccine gets one, you are a poor steward of vaccine information. Do your homework and no, I am not your secretary. I stand completely behind what I wrote. As I recall, you had no idea what censorship was either. It’s not about how soon companies can make them, it’s about how long it will take to inform and educate people, and get the vaccines to distribute, and make sure poor and vulnerable people can also get them free or at low cost. How easy do you think this will be to do in India, or in the poor neighborhoods of the United States. Counting companies working on them and assuring people they will all have one is neither accurate nor responsible. It will be years before things can return to normal if they ever do. Anything else is just a lie.
Donald are you really suggesting that everyone who lives in Southeast Asia or Africa or Mexico or across our own Southern border will be vaccinated within 18 months? I have a good friend who is also a cousin who practices medicine at Mass General in Boston. He says this is a fantasy, it will be between 10 and 12 years before enough people in the world – that is billions of people – will be tested and vaccinated. Maybe longer. That seems quite conservative to me, and I’m sure you can do your own work on the life of pandemics since you are so considered with stewardship.
I have also been closely following this virus and my friend is an epidemiologist who has been working in this field for years. This is my opinion, and I strongly believe in it. If you have a different opinion, you are free to express it, but differing with you doesn’t make me irresponsible or careless. I have absolutely no doubt – that this will go on for years, it might be less than 12,it might be longer, I can’t say for sure. That was the doctor’s estimate. I have no doubt hundreds of companies will make a fortune selling vaccines all over the world, and I have no doubt tens of millions of people will not have access to them or be able to afford them, which will mean the virus stays with us.
You clearly don’t understand how herd immunity works; we don’t need to vaccinate “everyone who lives in Southeast Asia or Africa or Mexico or across our own Southern border” for the vaccine to be an effective solution. By your logic, we would not have eradicated any disease, since not everyone in existence has been vaccinated for those, either. I’m glad you have a nameless “friend” who tells you things, but that’s not the same as citing actual data and facts. I can cite a dozen articles from reputable sources proving my data. Can you cite anything except your conveniently expert “friend”?
I don’t have anything else to add Donald we just see it differently. I like what I wrote and believe it don’t feel the need to justify it to you, thanks for commenting and take care. I’m pretty comfortable with my belief that we won’t be sitting here in 18 months saying all of this is over. As usual, rich people will get vaccines and poor people won’t or can’t.
“I believe we are taught to fear the wrong things and need the wrong things” I agree with this, Jon. Staying home, not buying unnecessary things, being still, going within, being present with those I am with, not hurrying to do or go, has been a balm for my soul. I don’t pine for the old normal. I think the old normal, for me, was just a stand in for what is real.
I thinnk you are exactly right. The change needed starts with each person. Bless you, you spoke to my heart.
Yes, Jon, we are learning in our own ways what is feels like to be needy.
“Change is not simply disruption; it is also an opportunity. I think our angry and hurtful politics reflects us; it tells us what we are feeling and what we need to change. It mirrors our frantic and anxious lives and throws it back at us”
I try to believe that change will bring opportunities I’ve yet to explore. I have had to close my bed & breakfast after 29 years of meeting and caring for many wonderful people I would otherwise not have met but for the B&B in our home. I cannot risk exposures due to this virus and my medical issue to having strangers in my home. I am having my B&B website repurposed. Can I repurpose my life at my age, early eighties. I don’t know. Reading your website gives me hope, I look for emotional sustenance in your website, I also look for our present reality. I am apolitical but what I see spewing from the mind and mouth of the US President Donald Trump does indeed reflect to very core of what our society has become, greedy, selfish, self-centred. The anger and blame that comes from him literally leaves me feeling sick and worried as to where the future of North America will lie.
I see as my reality that there is no cure for this virus in the near future, we will all have to find ways to adapt to the reality of what has happened and how our lives will be lived. I thank you for offering both hope and reality in your writing.
Sandy Proudfoot
You have brought into the fear factor. I am southern so I say “Bless your heart.” I mean you are truly intellect enough to understand this is a brand new virus that was hidden in the country of origin until other countries (80+) became its victim. This is a virus like every other virus we have had. A vaccine is going to be slower in development because we did not know about it!!!! This is a rough ride, Sugarpop, but you will make it!! Hopefully, the people in power will rush a vaccine through and save the day.
Sugarpop? Well, that’s kind of cute. Thanks for the message, my Popsicle, I’m not sure I get the point of this message, or what it has to do with my post. I’m not sure I want to read your explanation either, Pumpkin.